Who's on Gadhafi's Side? Some Say He's Hiring Mercenaries

The motives of Libya's pro-democracy protesters are clear: Inspired by popular revolts in neighboring Arab countries, they want to break free from Col. Moammar Gadhafi and win freedoms they've been denied during his 41-year-old rule.

But what's motivating those fighting for Gadhafi? And who are they?

Survivors of the pitched battles spreading throughout Libya over the past week have reported seeing foreigners -- dark-skinned fighters from sub-Saharan Africa alongside white combatants, perhaps from Europe -- attacking anti-government protesters. Some say the plainclothes assailants spoke French or Italian, suggesting they could be foreign mercenaries hired by Gadhafi to attack his own people.


With journalists largely banned from Libya and battles still raging, it's all but impossible to verify the identities of those fighting to keep Gadhafi in power. And while the Libyan leader is not known to have used foreign mercenaries in the past, it's a tactic many would not put past him.

"He's delusional about his own status and power," Nadim Shehadi, a Middle East expert at London's Chatham House think tank, told AOL News. "It's only a matter of time before the regime collapses. It's like he's walking dead. ... There's no way he can get back into control. It's a matter of what the cost is going to be."

An estimated 1.5 million Egyptians are working in neighboring Libya. Some of those workers fled across the two countries' land border today, bringing with them cell-phone videos of pro-government mercenaries being beaten in the border city of Baida. One video showed a dark-skinned fighter, said to be a paid soldier from Chad, beaten to death in a crowd. YouTube carried several similarly grisly videos from elsewhere across Libya.

Libya's ambassador to India, Ali al-Essawi, confirmed the reports that mercenaries are being used to crush protests. He said many Libyan soldiers have switched sides because of it and joined anti-government demonstrations. The troops "are Libyans and they cannot see foreigners killing Libyans, so they moved beside the people," he told Reuters.

Al-Essawi resigned his diplomatic post and remains in New Delhi. It's unclear whether he plans to seek amnesty there. Several other Libyan diplomats, including some at the United Nations, have resigned and spoken out against Gadhafi's heavy-handed tactics. Two Libyan air force colonels landed their fighter planes in Malta on Monday, attempting to defect.

Hiring foreign mercenaries could be a desperate tactic by a dictator who realizes his regular army is turning on him. It could also be a tactic of psychological warfare. The arrival of paid foreign fighters, with no loyalty or sympathy for the Libyan people, is likely to intimidate the populace in a way that didn't happen in Egypt, for example, where soldiers exercised restraint in crowds of unarmed protesters.

"It's almost like a mental domination that makes a successful rule of terror," Shehadi said. "Being a dictator, you can't rule by force all the time. You rule by fear."

Another reason Gadhafi may have opted to use foreign mercenaries against his people is because he understands his army's weaknesses -- precisely because he created them.

The last time Libya's armed forces fought any major war was in 1987 in Chad. Thousands of Libyans were killed, and the conflict taught Gadhafi an important lesson: that his armed forces might not be up to snuff. After that he established separate security brigades to protect his regime, apart from the regular army. They're elite paramilitary forces, smaller in number than the Libyan army, but thought to be fiercely loyal to Gadhafi.

The infamously paranoid Libyan leader has also long feared a military coup -- the same type that brought him to power in 1969. So he has intentionally kept his own army understaffed and under-equipped, according to Charles Gurdon, a Libya expert who runs Menas Associates, a political risk consultancy in London.

"They did not have modern weapons and they didn't even have ammunition for a number of years," Gurdon told AOL News. "On the other hand, there are security brigades designed to fight against the army if necessary, and to protect the regime."

Ruthless and devoutly loyal to Gadhafi, it's those security brigades that Gurdon believes are attacking unarmed protesters in Libya's main squares, perhaps with the help of foreigners. Most of the Libyan leader's sons have their own security brigades as well.

Gadhafi's reliance on such brigades shows he may have anticipated the army's switching sides -- as was the case in Egypt earlier this month -- and thus lined up a tougher, more loyal force even years in advance. Guron said he has received reports of Libyan soldiers being executed by members of the security brigades.

"Some members of the army have been killed for not fighting, and they were killed by people within the security brigades, because they disobeyed orders to attack protesters," he said.

Egypt's former President Hosni Mubarak also attempted to use uniformed thugs to attack and intimidate protesters. But the tactic largely backfired, triggering international outrage when plainclothes Interior Ministry agents, many on camels and horseback, raided Cairo's Tahrir Square on Jan. 28, attacking unarmed protesters with clubs and knives. The regime was shamed and forced to reel them in.

In Libya, such tactics haven't been televised like they were in Egypt, and it's been tougher to confirm the attackers' identities. Reports of brutality on the part of the security brigades and foreign mercenaries are only now emerging, a week after clashes began.

But there are signs Gadhafi's regime is slipping.

"For 40 years it's worked. ... It's only now that you're seeing members of the army and officers rebelling against the regime and going against orders," Guron said. "You can see what the result is now."